Lawyers For The Creative Arts To Acquire All Operations Of Arts & Business Council Of Chicago

The Board of Directors of Chicago-based Lawyers for the Creative Arts (LCA), now in its sixth decade as the only pro bono legal service organization in Illinois devoted entirely to the arts, announced today that it will absorb the operations of fellow legacy nonprofit, the Arts & Business Council of Chicago (A&BC).  

Chief among the A&BC programming to be offered by LCA is the signature Business Volunteers for the Arts (BVA), in which teams of volunteer consultants are matched with nonprofit arts organizations to support them in critical capacity building. Since A&BC's founding in 1985, this program has assisted thousands of arts groups through the pro bono work of highly trained business volunteers, providing over 100,000 hours of free consulting valued at over $14 million.

The two organizations had discussed the potential of consolidating programs for several years, but the concept crystallized in late 2023 when A&BC's Board voted to explore a transfer of its assets. The significant alignment in missions and many of the programs of the two organizations made LCA a clear choice for the acquisition. Notably, while both organizations have always operated as separate entities, in most major markets, the Arts and Business Councils and the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts groups have operated successfully under a single corporate structure. That will now be the result here.

Moving forward, LCA will undertake a thorough review of all A&BC programs with the goal of delivering a broader and more robust range of services to the sector than either organization was delivering before the transfer. A&BC currently employs one full-time staff member, Executive Director Kristin Larsen, who will provide valuable assistance with this transition through May 10, 2024. Longtime LCA Executive Director Jan Feldman will continue in his role overseeing the organization and will work with two A&BC Board members who join the LCA Board through 2024 to assist in transition efforts.

“The Arts & Business Council of Chicago has served thousands of unique arts organizations over our nearly 40-year history by helping connect them with thousands of talented and dedicated volunteers,” said Larsen. “In the last five years alone, we've engaged more than 2,200 program participants and provided over $1M in pro bono services to more than 70 arts organizations throughout Illinois. I'm happy to know that our programs will now be in the hands of an organization so closely aligned with our mission.”

“For over 50 years, Lawyers for the Creative Arts has channeled the huge volunteer base of our City's legal community, and their vast knowledge and experience, in providing free legal help to the arts community. Both organizations share decades-long histories of creating programs shaped to the unique and varied needs of arts workers and arts organizations. With this new outcome, we'll now be able to provide a simpler, one-stop shop,” added Feldman. “Both Boards of Directors are confident this plan will yield significant benefits to the arts community in Chicago and across the State of Illinois.”

Arts & Business Council of Chicago (A&BC) began operations in 1985 with the mission to build partnerships that enhance the management capacity of creatives while strengthening the business sector by expanding its capabilities for effective management and leadership through volunteerism. A&BC has attracted the support and volunteer efforts of thousands of individuals, corporations, philanthropies, and governments, who are moved by its innovative approaches to helping those in the arts to be savvy and strategic in the business side of their arts. Many well-known arts organizations credit A&BC's signature program, Business Volunteers for the Arts (BVA), with giving them the training and consulting support they need to meet the many commercial challenges affecting the arts every day. A&BC is also well known for its effective OnBOARD program, Learning Labs, and smARTscope assessment survey, seminars and organizational tools. The Arts & Business Council is currently chaired by Simi Gambhir.

Lawyers for the Creative Arts (LCA) was founded in 1972 by a group of Chicago lawyers dedicated to serving the specialized legal and business needs of individual artists and arts organizations. LCA has served many tens of thousands of arts clients by linking them to volunteer lawyers from most of the largest firms in the state with the specialized background to represent their legal needs pro bono. These attorneys provide free legal representation across all areas of the arts – music, dance, literary, visual, and theater, to name a few. Over the decades LCA has provided critical legal representation to groups large and small, from The Goodman Theatre, Hubbard Street Dance and Marwen Foundation to smaller neighborhood organizations such as Forward Momentum, the Hideout and the Chopin Theatre. In addition to its Legal Services program, LCA presents a large range of educational seminars, workshops, clinics, and consulting services designed to bolster the business capacity of individual artists and arts groups. In 2023, these programs reached 4,000 participants. To assist the volunteer attorneys who LCA relies on to represent its arts clients, LCA created a first-in-the-nation Video Law Library of tutorials covering many specialized areas of Arts Law. LCA's many programs have garnered wide praise. Musical America Worldwide named LCA to its 2020 list of “Top Professionals of the Year” for its “game-changing innovation [and] sweat equity” during the pandemic. One of LCA's foundation supporters refers to LCA as “like the Red Cross for the Arts,” based partly on LCA's programs assisting artists and arts organizations to weather the challenges of the pandemic. In March 2023, the Chicacgo Youth Symphony Orchestras recognized LCA's contributions as an arts service provider by presenting its Note of Excellence Award at the CYSO Gala. The LCA Board of Directors is chaired by David K. Callahan.

For more information on Lawyers for the Creative Arts or the Business Volunteers for the Arts program, please visit www.law-arts.org and www.artsbiz-chicago.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.